The US Navy just armed the Zumwalt with hypersonic missiles. The ship critics called a $7 billion failure is now the only surface combatant on Earth that can launch a weapon above Mach 5. Three ships instead of thirty-two. A gun with no ammunition. A railgun that never fired. But three engineering decisions, each one dismissed as over-engineering, turned out to be the exact prerequisites for carrying the Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missile. 78 megawatts of surplus power. A tumblehome hull invisible on radar. Peripheral launch cells built for weapons that did not yet exist. Every margin the engineers designed. Every margin the critics called waste. Every margin that turned out to be the price of admission. This video breaks down the physics behind each decision and explains why the Zumwalt may have been the smartest money the Navy ever spent. #USNavy #Zumwalt #HypersonicMissile

Source: Why the US Navy Just Armed Its “Failed” Destroyer With Hypersonics